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LETTER: Pro-life arguments seem inconsistent

In your newspaper's online comments section, somebody made a statement to the effect of, "people should consider before having children because they are expensive."

This led me to consider previous statements made by commenters refuting reproductive rights and promoting high Christology. This typical view from the male conservative right tends to believe it is the "woman's fault" if she finds herself pregnant.

Let's work through this.

1) People should consider before having children because they are expensive.

This is exactly why some men and women decide to terminate a pregnancy. They know they cannot afford to care for another child. Adoption, you will say. According to Adopt America Network, there are 130,000 children in America alone; this doesn't count those in other countries waiting to be adopted, so your logic says "go ahead, put one more in the system. It will be a newborn, thus, it will be adopted quickly." My logic says, "Let's find the children who are here and needing love and homes before bringing more."

2) The people who claim we should eliminate birth control and reproductive choice are the same ones who say it is the woman's "fault" for becoming pregnant. While this is bad enough, now let us consider the theological framework such thoughts are birthed (no pun intended) within. Most of those who are against reproductive rights, including birth control, are those who take the Bible literally. OK, but if one takes the Bible literally, the Bible clearly portrays a patriarchal society that places more responsibility on the man than the woman. A woman is to submit to a man's authority due to creation order (man first, woman second), woman created from man's rib, woman created for man, and then the beloved Ephesians 5 passage which tells women to "submit" to their husbands.

If we choose to take the Bible literally as well as seriously, I would think this would result in the responsibility for unwanted pregnancies to lay (again, no pun) upon the men. In other words, maybe as men we should keep our pants zipped.